It’s great if you are already a “Wi-Fi Literate” but there are decent chances that you may still be confused about ‘Wi-Fi’ and what all it can do for the end consumers.

Most of us know ”Wi-Fi” as something that lets us access internet without physically connecting to the LAN. But there’s a more to it.

Below are some basic facts and pieces of information related to Wi-Fi which will help you understand Wi-Fi much better and easier.

1. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology (following IEEE 802.11 standard) that lets digital devices such as PC,laptop,mobile phones to connect and access internet through a router without any physical association with the wired network(LAN).Interestingly,’Wireless Fidelity’,as such does not mean anything.It was actually a branding strategy by the governing Alliance to make their service a bit more catchy and “Hi-Fi”.

2. “Wi-Fi” was termed by  Wi-Fi Alliance,which takes the responsibility of overseeing tests that certify product interoperability.A product that passes the alliance tests is given the label “Wi-Fi certified“.

3. Wi-Fi hotspots are the access points through which wireless internet is accessed.Restaurants,coffee-shops,food joints offer free hotspots within their premises as a mode of attraction.More hotspots correspond to more coverage and heavy usage support(higher bandwidth support).

4. To establish a Wi-Fi connectivity,the two primary conditions are Wireless adapter at user’s end(within the laptop or PC) and a Wi-Fi router(externally placed).Most of new laptops and desktop computers come with built-in wireless adapter.

5. Wi-Fi networks are very limited in range.A typical Wi-Fi router might have a range of 30 m(~100 ft) indoor and 90 m(295 ft) outdoor.Range also varies with selected frequency band.Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz frequency band has slightly better range than Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz frequency band.

6. Wi-Fi is much more prone to security abuse than wired LAN.As the level of openness is quite high,Wi-Fi’s encryption methods face continuous failure in front of easily available softwares such as Aircrack.This is the reason why private Wi-Fi networks prefer employing ‘Whitelist IP Usage’ only.

7. There are future plans to turn entire cities such as San Francisco,Philadelphia and few others into big wireless hotspots.The Wi-Fi services will either be free(ad-supported) or subscription based.

8. Cities like San Francisco(U.S.) and Hong Kong(Asia) are even running buses with free and fully operational Wi-Fi services.